JO RACTLIFFE

Jo Ractliffe is a contemporary South African photographer known for her quiet yet penetrating examinations of landscape, memory and the lingering aftermaths of conflict. Over four decades, her work has explored how histories—particularly those shaped by war, displacement, and apartheid—imprint themselves on the terrain. Ractliffe’s photographs resist the immediacy of the journalistic documentary image; instead, they approach the world obliquely, revealing meaning through absence, nuance, and the stark, poetic atmosphere that emanates from certain situations.